I'm an Earl Grey and peach black lover myself (and any spicy chai, especially when honey is added), but i got some Lapsang Souchong out of curiosity. All these people mentioned it and talked about how good it was. It was described as smoky. The brand is Elmwood Inn Fine Teas and it's loose leaf. It smells excruciatingly smoky, and i was wondering if anyone out there who knows the tea would know if it's really that smoky to the taste or not. I'm terribly afraid to taste it now.

I recently got the Lapsang Souchong from Adagio a while back. It pretty much tastes like it smells, just as strong. I didn't think I'd like it until I used half that, and half another black (in this case my ceylon). It made it nice to drink.

Thanks for the warning, EvenOdd. I just brewed a cup of it to satisfaction. It's not my cup of tea , but it's ok for now. I put 1/2 tsp of the L.S. in my infuser, put it and a black tea bag in my cup, and poured the boiling water on it. I immediately took out the L.S. (not the bag, though) and tasted it. I couldn't taste the L.S. yet, so i dipped it in the water four times (like touching the water four times). I did this three times total. The entire process lasted 1 minute. I think i'll stick to non-smoky teas and donate the L.S. to someone else.

I ordered a Tarry Souchong (even stronger than the Lapsang Souchong) from Betjeman and Barton, a French tea merchant. When my order arrived all of the other teas I ordered had picked up the smoky smell / taste. (They weren't packaged very well.) My office even smelled like it for a day or two!

But I find that appealing personally - the more overpowering the smoky smell is, the more likely I am to enjoy it. I think it's really a matter of personal preference.

Yeah I've gotten used to the smell because it's relatively popular where I work, and on top of that my boyfriend loves it (weak tastebuds, so he loves strong flavors). But at first, anytime someone would order it at my shop, I'd secretly go "No! You don't want lapsang! Trust me!"

Funny story about Lapsang Souchong. When I was in college someone bought me a box of Lapsang Souchong teabags and when I made it the smoke smell was overpowering as well as the smokey taste to it. A good number of my friends were over at the time and they were also amazed a bit by the unusual tea so we ended up passing the tea cup around and pretty much everyone took a small sip of it. One person commented that this tea smells and tastes like smoked ham, which in my opinion accurately described it. After that the question came up of what to do with the other 19 tea bags of the "smoked ham tea" and one person suggested dumping them in the dinning hall at the beverage station with the other teabags and then filling out comment cards complaining about the horriable tea and a few of the those among us stuffed their pockets with the rest of the Lapsang Souchong teabags when we left to the dinning hall for dinner. Later on during dinner we watched as a chef came out of the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea and he choose one of the Lapsang Souchong ones and took a sip of it as he was on his way back to the kitchen. After tasting the Lapsang Souchong, he quickly turned around and dumped it into the "ice catcher" thing in the soda machine and made himself another cup of a different type of tea instead. Then after the meal a few of us filled out comment cards complaining about the new "smoked ham tea" and how they should not buy any more of it again.